White Center Now: The blog about White Center

(Crossposted from partner site WSB) The West Seattle Lions‘ mural at 17th and Roxbury is now officially dedicated – a reader shared photos from the event, including artist Xavier Lopez Jr., above, signing his creation. Last month, Lopez was honored as a White Center Hero for his role in the mural art that’s popping up all around White Center and South Delridge, including the new Lions mural.

(WS Lions president Jimie Martin with Mark Ufkes from the WC Chamber)
A map to all the White Center-area murals can be found on the WC Chamber of Commerce‘s website.

4:52 PM: Seattle crews are handling it right now, but this is likely to affect traffic to/from White Center for a while – a crash at 8th and Roxbury. 8th is reported closed north of Roxbury; we’re waiting for our crew to report in with word on whether all of Roxbury is affected, or just the westbound side. Two vehicles and a motorcycle are reported to be involved in the crash.

5 PM UPDATE: The crash is on the Seattle side of Roxbury; both directions of traffic on Roxbury are getting through. No one involved was hurt badly enough to have to go to the hospital. The two vehicles are both pickups, including the one in our top photo.

Through our original site West Seattle Blog, we organize the annual West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day. Tomorrow (Saturday, May 12th), is the 8th annual edition, and it’s the fifth year we have organized/coordinated it. If you’re interested in heading out to shop – official sale hours are 9 am to 3 pm – not only are more than 240 sales registered for all around West Seattle, there are also a few here in White Center. Go to this page on WSB to see both the online map – which is clickable and zoomable like most online maps – and a link to the downloadable map you can print as a 12-page PDF.

The White Center-area sales (and note there are sales not far, in Highland Park and other parts of south West Seattle):

#008 – 9800 8th SW (Greenbridge Plaza, benefit sale by White Center Kiwanis)
#165 – 9824 30th SW
#245 – 1820 SW 100th
#249 – 1903 SW 112th

Covering Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn‘s Town Hall last night in Delridge for partner site West Seattle Blog, we spotted Aileen Sison participating in the community-information fair that preceded the event. She was there to represent the White Center Chamber of Commerce, answering questions and share information about WC; area residents were invited to browse the information fair in the hour before the mayor spoke at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.

If you had a one-use tree this holiday season – here’s how to recycle it.

If you have Waste Management pickup service, you can put it out with your yard waste this week, as long as you follow these rules:

Waste Management collects Christmas trees from its residential customers. Be sure the tree is cut into three-foot sections and remove any tree stands, nails, tinsel and decorations.

If you are within Seattle city limits, you can take your tree to the South Transfer Station in South Park, as long as it’s not taller than eight feet (rules here).

Wherever you live, you are welcome to help out local nonprofits with these two tree-cycling events coming up next weekend:

SATURDAY & SUNDAY: Boy Scout Troop 375 Christmas Tree Recycle
January 7 – 8, 2012 (9 to 4)
Five Corners (160th and 1st Avenue in Burien)
$5 per tree
“Good Karma” Christmas Tree Mulch available for $25 donation per yard

SATURDAY, TWO LOCATIONS: The West Seattle Rainbow Girls will hold their fifth annual Christmas tree recycle fundraiser January 7 at the Alki Masonic Hall 4736 40th Ave. SW. and also at the Southgate Masonic Hall located at 1004 SW 152nd in Burien from 10:00 – 2:00. Suggested donation $5.00. No flocked trees please. For more information please contact Jan Hunter at 206-849-7906. Check out the Rainbow Girls by going to www.gorainbow.org.

(Photo by Deanie Schwarz for WCN/WSB)
As first reported on partner site West Seattle Blog: The Roxbury/Delridge/15th intersection was closed for a short time tonight after a bus hit a woman. The response by Seattle Fire and Police was initially major because the woman was reported to be trapped under the bus, but it was determined that she was not trapped after all. She was taken to the hospital but not reported to have serious injuries. The intersection is open again now (as we publish this at 9:34 pm).

In case you hadn’t heard, besides White Center Spring Clean day (more on that later) among other things, it’s West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day, coordinated and presented by our partner site West Seattle Blog. Lots of south-WS sales on the map, plus WC-nearby Village Green Perennial Nursery, so if you’d like to check ’em out, find the online and printable maps here – sales continue till 3 pm.

(Also published on WSB)

You’ve heard a lot about what’s going on in the Middle East – but have you heard about what’s going on in Southeast Asia? A border clash between Cambodia and Thailand is about to come to a head in front of the United Nations, and today Cambodian-Americans came to White Center and West Seattle for a demonstration aimed at bringing it to your attention and demanding the U.S. government get involved. WCN/WSB contributor Deanie Schwarz noticed the protest, took these photos and talked to spokesperson Sokmakara Hang, who explained that the demonstrators came from all over the state, and came here because this area has the state’s highest concentration of Cambodian-Americans. They stood on corners all around 16th/Roxbury:

Also on hand was Meach Sovannara from the Khmer Post Media Center in Long Beach (Calif.). The dispute is over a border area near the Preah Vihear Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site that is more than a millennium old. The Cambodian-Americans say the most recent skirmishes killed Cambodian soldiers, and are demanding that the Thai government stop what they call an “invasion.” They want United Nations intervention as well as President Obama and the rest of the international community. According to this story from the Bangkok Post, this issue will be brought to the UN Security Council on Monday, and reportedly Cambodia will claim it’s at war with Thailand. There’s more background on the century-long conflict over the temple in this Jakarta Post story.

(Note: While our West Seattle site is down – its server-management company says they’re under denial-of-service attack – we’re posting stories here, since this site is unaffected, using a different server-management company. When the outage is over, we’ll move them to WSB and delete them here unless they’re of White Center relevance too.)

New development tonight in the wake of yesterday’s Lincoln Park attack and arrest. Tonight police have gone public with that sketch they say was made because of an attack in the park last December. They want to hear from anyone and everyone who not only might have had a suspicious encounter in the park, but anyone who might have been subject to “unwanted touching” elsewhere in West Seattle. As we reported earlier today, the man arrested yesterday, 46-year-old Duane Starkenburg, is currently charged only in one incident – and police are working hard to see if there are others he might be responsible for. Here’s their full update.

Local utilities say there’s help for people who can’t pay their utility bills – but few people manage to get that help, because they don’t know it exists. That’s why Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light are putting on a special event this weekend in West Seattle – find out about it here (and that link also will help you find out if you qualify for assistance).

In case anybody comes here looking for this information – our partner site West Seattle Blog is currently down because of problems where our server is hosted. If there’s any major West Seattle news, we’ll post it here as well as via Facebook and Twitter. Meantime, we’ll have some new White Center stories shortly!

Tonight at South Seattle Community College in West Seattle, as covered on partner site West Seattle Blog, about 200 people showed up for a Seattle City Council budget hearing – and almost half of them spoke to the council (with, eventually, all nine members on hand). Among them, White Center Food Bank executive director Rick Jump – not speaking against a proposed cut by Mayor McGinn, but instead, in favor of the $35,000 he has proposed giving the WC Food Bank. Jump noted that a third of his agency’s clients come from within Seattle city limits, another third from unincorporated areas, and another third from Burien, and he does get funding from both the latter city and from the county. P.S. He’ll be back at SSCC’s Brockey Center, same site as tonight’s hearing, this Saturday night for the food bank’s annual Harvest Dinner and Auction, 5:30 pm.

Countywide Community Forums are coming to the area – not White Center, but close. Here’s the invite, with an offer of free food, and a request for your RSVP:

OCTOBER 14: Countywide Community Forums event, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Freedom Church of West Seattle
9601 35th Avenue SW
Tel:206-937-1417
Community-wide forum and dinner hosted by the Freedom Church in West Seattle. Join us for dinner with Dick’s Drive-In burgers and shakes and for a stimulating discussion about the county’s $63 million shortfall and how it impacts you and your community. Please RSVP through the website or by calling (206) 937-1417, so we know how much food to provide.

You can find out more about the CCF organization by going here.

Just in case you are wondering what’s going on and why traffic is blocked on westbound Roxbury around 14th SW – there has been a multiple shooting incident, with four people reported dead according to scanner traffic (though police have not yet formally confirmed that), at 14th and Cambridge, just north of Roxbury. We are posting continuing coverage at partner site West Seattle Blog.

If you can make it over to Avalon Glassworks in West Seattle’s Luna Park business district tomorrow afternoon – here’s an unusual fundraiser: Suggested donation $40 for a professionally photographed head shot, and the money goes to the White Center Food Bank. More details here.

Thanks to Alice and Helen, readers of partner site West Seattle Blog, for the tips that led us to this information: The government of El Salvador has set up a “mobile consulate” at Denny International Middle School in West Seattle this weekend, till 4 pm today, and again 8 am-4 pm tomorrow. This is particularly important to Salvadorean citizens who need to re-register for Temporary Protected Status, with a deadline coming up next week.

3:30 PM: We’ve been covering this on partner site West Seattle Blog but it affects White Center drivers too – by Greenbridge, 8th/Roxbury is mostly blocked by a two-car crash. People have had to be extricated from the wreckage of one vehicle. At least three people are hurt. We’re at the scene and gathering more information now. 3:55 PM UPDATE: One lane is open each way at the intersection but you’ll still want to avoid it if you can, for a while – the Seattle Police investigation team has just arrived, and their work at scenes of major crashes usually takes a while. Here’s the scene once they put up the tape:

We now know that four people went to the hospital (at least one of them, a child, according to the scanner) – two by medic unit, two by private ambulance.

Just a quick reminder: Though fireworks have been for sale in the unincorporated area since Monday, using them is ONLY legal 9 am-midnight on Sunday. And if you are within the Seattle or Burien city limits, they are NOT legal at all.

Last night at the 34th District Democrats‘ meeting in West Seattle, White Center Food Bank executive director Rick Jump was one of the community leaders who posed questions to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, City Council President Richard Conlin, and Councilmember Bruce Harrell. It was a question that he and others have asked for a long time: Since a third of the White Center Food Bank’s service area is within the Seattle city limits, shouldn’t the organization get some funding from the city? Bottom line – none of the three disagreed; they promised to see what they could do. This won thunderous applause from the 100-plus in attendance, since the WC Food Bank is a major beneficiary of volunteer time/donations from the 34th DDs. More from the meeting coming up later today.

Evergreen Community Aquatic Center is among the organizations/businesses/entities tabling at today’s Westwood Village Street Fair, close to the White Center/West Seattle line, so if you go to the street fair, drop by and say hi! The events are all happening in the Bed Bath Beyond/Pier 1 Imports parking lot, till 7 tonight. We’ve got a schedule of events and other highlights in our coverage on partner site West Seattle Blog.